Corn

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Bioenergy > Feedstocks > Ethanol feedstocks > Corn

Corn, also known as maize, provides food in addition to being used as a feedstock for the production of the biofuel ethanol (bioethanol). Corn stover, a potential feedstock for cellulosic ethanol, is the "leftover" portion of the corn plant after harvest, including corn cobs, stalks and leaves.

Availability

• Information on the availability of corn stover in the United States can be found on the Sungrant BioWeb Corn Stover page

Sustainability

Financial support for the growing of corn, such as through subsidies in the United States, has been linked to various impacts, both locally -- such as soil erosion, changing the overall amount and ratios of crops grown (such as through promoting increased corn production and reduced soy production) and indirect impacts on an international scale (such as through distortions of markets, increases in prices of food and changes in cropping patterns), resulting in social and ecological damage, such as increased poverty and food insecurity and degradation of tropical forests. For more, see the food-versus-fuel debate.

Environmental Sustainability

Greenhouse Gases

Biodiversity

Pollution

Relative GHG emissions reduction potentials for ethanol by feedstock type. These estimates refer to direct emissions only, and do not include emissions from land use change. Source: Worldwatch Issue Brief: U.S. Biofuels: Climate Change and Policies (PDF file)

• Corn-Based Biofuels Spell Death for Gulf of Mexico, 13 March 2008 by Wired Magazine: "If the United States makes corn-based ethanol the centerpiece of its biofuel portfolio, the Gulf of Mexico's vast dead zone will expand and become impossible to control, says a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." The "dead zone" is an area of low dissolved oxygen (a condition known as hypoxia), caused by high levels of nitrogen runoff due to chemical fertilizer use, resulting in significantly decreased marine life.
  • Corn "is almost universally regarded as an environmentally unfriendly crop that compares poorly to other biofuel sources and requires enormous quantities of fertilizers and pesticides to grow."
  • Link to the scientific article: "Corn-based ethanol production compromises goal of reducing nitrogen export by the Mississippi River"

• Concern about worsening of the dead zone as a result of expanded corn-based ethanol production is echoed in a December 2007 report by the Environmental Protection Agency, "Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico" (PDF file). The summary reads in part:
  • "Certain aspects of the nation’s current agricultural and energy policies are at odds with the goals of hypoxia reduction and improving water quality....[A]n emerging national strategy on renewable fuels has granted economic incentives to corn-based ethanol production. The projected increase in corn production from this strategy has profound implications for water quality...as well as hypoxia....Recent energy policies, combined with pre-existing crop subsidies, tax policies, global market conditions and trade barriers all provide economic incentives for conversion of retired and other cropland to corn production for use in ethanol production."

Land Degradation

Social Sustainability

Technology/Science

Properties

Technology

Economics/Policy

• Click here for complete US corn balance sheet. Includes total corn production and consumption, prices and corn used for ethanol.
• Click here for USDA statistics on total food aid by commodity for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, including totals for corn and corn meal.

Publications

The cover of the October 2007 National Geographic magazine.

• Ethanol Expansion in the United States - How Will the Agricultural Sector Adjust? (PDF file) by Paul C. Westcott of the USDA Economic Research Service.
  • This report finds that the effects on agricultural markets of the ongoing expansion of corn-based ethanol in the United States will "extend well beyond the corn sector to supply and demand for other crops, such as soybeans and cotton, as well as to the livestock industries."

• How Fuel Ethanol Is Made from Corn by Nathan S. Mosier and Klein Ileleji, Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Purdue University, December 2006. This is a simple introduction to how corn becomes ethanol.

• Estimating the Net Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol (PDF) by Hosein Shapouri, James A. Duffield, and Michael S. Graboski. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Office of Energy. Agricultural Economic Report No. 721, July 1995.

• Staying Home: How Ethanol will Change U.S. Corn Exports Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, December 2006.

News

• The Case Against Biofuels: Probing Ethanol’s Hidden Costs, 11 March 2010 opinion piece by C. Ford Runge in Yale environment360: "Despite strong evidence that growing food crops to produce ethanol is harmful to the environment and the world’s poor, the Obama administration is backing subsidies and programs that will ensure that half of the U.S.’s corn crop will soon go to biofuel production. It’s time to recognize that biofuels are anything but green."
  • President Obama "and his administration have wholeheartedly embraced corn ethanol and the tangle of government subsidies, price supports, and tariffs that underpin the entire dubious enterprise of using corn to power our cars. In early February, the president threw his weight behind new and existing initiatives to boost ethanol production from both food and nonfood sources, including supporting Congressional mandates that would triple biofuel production to 36 billion gallons by 2022."
  • "Yet a close look at their impact on food security and the environment — with profound effects on water, the eutrophication of our coastal zones from fertilizers, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions — suggests that the biofuel bandwagon is anything but green."
  • Due to fertilizer usage, "loadings of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico encourage algae growth, starving water bodies of oxygen needed by aquatic life and enlarging the hypoxic 'dead zone' in the gulf."[1]

Change in Corn Plantings as Percent of County Area, 2004-2007 in the U.S. Prairie Pothole Region.

• Corn Crowds Out Wildlife in Prairie Pothole Region, 13 January 2010 press release by National Wildlife Federation: "A new report shows how government incentives for corn ethanol are driving farmers to shift land into corn production, resulting in significant decreases in grassland bird populations throughout the fragile Prairie Pothole Region. The study analyzes the current and potential impacts of increased corn ethanol production on wildlife and habitat in the Prairie Pothole states of Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota."
  • "According to the report, U.S. ethanol capacity has grown almost 200 percent since the passage of the 2005 Energy Bill, which mandated a large increase in domestic ethanol production."
  • "By identifying areas with the most dramatic land-use changes in Prairie Pothole states, researchers were able to see where there are 'hotspots' of increased corn plantings and habitat loss." The study's "results showed that counties with high increases in corn plantings had significant declines of nearly 30 percent in populations of sensitive grassland birds between 2005 and 2008."[2]
  • Download the full report:
    • Corn Ethanol and Wildlife - How increases in corn plantings are affecting habitat and wildlife in the Prairie Pothole Region (PDF file)

• Lawsuit: LCFS violates US Constitution, 4 January 2010 by Todd J. Guerrero in Ethanol Producer Magazine: "In a case that will be closely watched throughout the country, Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association recently filed suit in federal district court alleging that California’s low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) violates the federal Constitution."
  • "For corn ethanol, indirect land use changes are a significant source of additional GHG emissions....Given the LCFS’ requirement of reduced carbon intensity, it’s not difficult to see that corn ethanol will be severely disadvantaged in California."[3]

• EPA delays action on more ethanol in gasoline, 1 December 2009 by Reuters: "Newer American cars will likely be able to handle higher ethanol blends in their gasoline but the decision to approve an industry request to change the fuel mix will have to await final testing next year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Tuesday."
  • "The EPA was supposed to decide by December 1 on a petition from Growth Energy and 54 ethanol manufacturers to let gasoline contain up to 15 percent ethanol."
  • "While farmers who provide the corn to make ethanol also support the initiative, automakers asked the EPA during the summer not to approve higher blends until the agency had test results showing the fuel would not damage vehicles."
  • "Energy legislation passed by Congress in 2007 set binding targets for fuel blending each year, with ethanol use rising from 4 billion gallons in 2006 and 11.1 billion gallons in 2009 to 20.5 billion by 2015 and 36 billion by 2022."[4]

• In Search of Wildlife-friendly Biofuels: Could Native Prairie Plants Be the Answer, 29 September 2009 by NewsWise/Michigan Technological University: "The unintended consequence of crop-based biofuels may be the loss of wildlife habitat, particularly that of the birds who call this country’s grasslands home, say researchers from Michigan Technological University and The Nature Conservancy."
  • In an article in BioScience, researchers "analyze the impacts on wildlife of the burgeoning conversion of grasslands to corn for ethanol production".
  • "Most of the recent expansion in land planted to corn involves land previously used to grow other crops. But there is evidence that more and more land that had been enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) is also being converted to crop production."[5]

• Solix Biofuels begins production of oil made from algae, 23 July 2009 by Denver Business Journal: Solix Biofuels Inc., a Colorado State University startup company, "has started the production of oil made from algae."
  • "Experts estimate the organisms can make as much as 8,000 to 10,000 gallons of oil per year per acre, compared to 50 or 60 gallons per year using soybeans, 20 gallons using corn, and 150 gallons using canola or rapeseeds."

• Bioenergy Makes Heavy Demands On Scarce Water Supplies, 4 June 2009 by ScienceDaily: "The 'water footprint' of bioenergy, i.e. the amount of water required to cultivate crops for biomass, is much greater than for other forms of energy. The generation of bioelectricity is significantly more water-efficient in the end, however – by a factor of two – than the production of biofuel. By establishing the water footprint for thirteen crops, researchers at the University of Twente were able to make an informed choice of a specific crop and production region. They published their results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of 2 June."
  • "Water that is used for bioenergy – whether it be for a food crop such as maize or a non-food crop such as jatropha – cannot be used for food production, for drinking water or for maintaining natural eco-systems."[6]

• For climate change bill, hard part starts now, 31 May 2009 by San Francisco Chronicle: "To get the climate change initiative to the House floor - and ultimately passed by the chamber - Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, must first run it through a gantlet of eight congressional committees headed by fellow Democrats who claim a piece of the action."
  • " [The] 46-member Agriculture Committee...is poised to make major alterations of the climate change plan, including overhauling the way the Environmental Protection Agency calculates the greenhouse gas emissions from alternative fuels made from corn and other plant materials...to make sure that when corn and other crops are made into biofuels, they qualify as low-carbon fuels under federal mandates."
  • "...corn-based ethanol advocates are worried about an EPA proposal to include 'indirect land use' changes - such as the clearing of forest for new farmlands - as part of any calculations on the carbon footprint of biofuels."
  • "Republicans...have largely united against the legislation, which they say would impose a hefty 'energy tax' on every U.S. business and consumer."

• Stress-Testing Biofuels: How the Game Was Rigged, 12 May 2009 by Time Magazine: "An outgrowth of the 2007 energy bill, [U.S. government evaluation "tests"] were supposed to document whether corn ethanol and other biofuels designed to replace fossil fuels would accelerate or alleviate global warming overall."
  • "The draft conclusions...were that cellulosic ethanol and other next-generation renewables will dramatically reduce greenhouse-gas emissions over their entire life cycle, but that in some scenarios, corn ethanol (as well as lesser-used soy biodiesel) can produce even more emissions than gasoline."
  • "In any case, the heavily subsidized corn-ethanol industries won't really be penalized for promoting deforestation and accelerating global warming; Congress exempted its existing plants from any consequences in the 2007 law requiring the stress tests."[7]

• Agrofuels in the Americas: An Irrational Strategy, 28 April 2009 by Organic Consumers Association: "The Food First report, Agrofuels in the Americas (PDF file), looks back over the last several years of the ethanol/biodiesel boom. The authors conclude that using crop land to produce fuel is an irrational strategy – one that negatively affects climate change, the environment, food security, and rural development worldwide."
  • The report notes that even "if all of the U.S.’s 90 million-acre corn crop were converted to ethanol, just 12-16% of our gasoline would be replaced - barely enough for current ten percent ethanol blends."[8]
  • Download the Food First report, Agrofuels in the Americas (PDF file).

• Water worries cloud future for U.S. biofuel, 14 April 2009 by Reuters: "Critics argue that precious water resources are being bled dry by ethanol when water shortages are growing ever more dire. [U.S.] Federal mandates encouraging more ethanol production don't help."
  • "Corn is a particularly thirsty plant, requiring about 20 inches of soil moisture per acre to grow a decent crop, but most corn is grown with rain, not irrigation. Manufacturing plants that convert corn's starch into fuel are a far bigger draw on water sources."
  • "Water consumption by ethanol plants largely comes from evaporation during cooling and wastewater discharge. A typical plant uses about 4.2 gallons of water to make one gallon of ethanol, according to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy."
  • "The ethanol industry pegs that at about 3 gallons of water to 1 gallon of fuel."[9]

• Corn Ethanol Industry Attacks California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard, 8 March 2009 by GreenBiz.com: "The California Air Resources Board (CARB) released proposed regulations for a Low Carbon Fuel Standard last week to reduce transportation fuel emissions 10 percent by 2020. By requiring fuel providers to sell cleaner fuels, regulators expect about 20 percent of fuel used in the state will be supplanted with alternatives, such as biofuels, hydrogen and electricity."
  • The "new rules are already facing stiff resistance from the corn ethanol industry, which is urging CARB to reject its staff's recommendations and arguing the new rules unfairly penalize ethanol using unproven science."
  • "At issue is the CARB staff's recommendations to include greenhouse gas emissions from indirect land use change in the calculation of biofuel carbon intensity, even though similar impacts aren't used in the intensity calculations of other fuels."[10]

• Cellulosic Ethanol May Benefit Human Health And Help Slow Climate Change, 3 February 2009 by ScienceDaily: "Filling our fuel tanks with cellulosic ethanol instead of gasoline or corn-based ethanol may be even better for our health and the environment than previously recognized, according to new research from the University of Minnesota."
  • "The study finds that cellulosic ethanol has fewer negative effects on human health because it emits smaller amounts of fine particulate matter, an especially harmful component of air pollution."
  • "The study is the first to estimate the economic costs to human health and well-being from gasoline, corn-based ethanol and cellulosic ethanol made from biomass. The authors found that depending on the materials and technology used in production, cellulosic ethanol's environmental and health costs are less than half the costs of gasoline, while corn-based ethanol's costs range from roughly equal to about double that of gasoline."
  • "The paper also points out that other potential advantages of cellulosic biofuels, such as reducing the amount of fertilizer and pesticide runoff into rivers and lakes, may also add to the economic benefit of transitioning to next-generation biofuels."[11]
  • See the Open Access study, "Climate change and health costs of air emissions from biofuels and gasoline" in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Ret. General Wesley Clark, at Growth Energy press conference, 5 February 2009, in Washington, D.C.

• Former NATO Commander Clark joins ethanol group, 5 February 2009 by The Hill: "A new ethanol group in a lobbying war with the Grocery Manufacturers Association has tapped a man with real fighting experience to help run the campaign."
  • "Former NATO Commander and Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark was introduced today as co-chairman of Growth Energy, a new organization designed to promote corn ethanol."
  • "Growth Energy is also pushing to increase a regulatory cap on the amount of ethanol that can be mixed with gasoline and for the continued tax support for the industry."[12]

2008

• Wind, Water and Sun Beat Biofuels, Nuclear and Coal for Energy Generation, Study Says, 17 December 2008 by RenewableEnergyWorld.com: A study by Prof. Mark Jacobson of Stanford University, entitled "Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security", published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science, has assessed energy options in a comprehensive manner.
  • "The raw energy sources that Jacobson found to be the most promising are, in order, wind, concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave and hydroelectric. He recommends against nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol, which is made of prairie grass. In fact, he found cellulosic ethanol was worse than corn ethanol because it results in more air pollution, requires more land to produce and causes more damage to wildlife."[13]

• Economy Shifts, and the Ethanol Industry Reels, 4 November 2008 by the New York Times: "As producers of ethanol navigate a triple whammy of falling prices for their product, credit woes and volatile costs for the corn from which ethanol is made, an economic version of 'Survivor' is playing out in the industry."
  • "Last week, VeraSun, one of the nation’s largest ethanol producers, announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection after its bets on the price of corn turned out to be wrong — and costly."[14]

• Can Biofuels Be Sustainable?, 20 August 2008 by ScienceDaily: "Research published this month in Agronomy Journal examines one biofuel crop contender: corn stover."
  • The researchers "suggest that a portion of corn stover could be harvested for biofuel production without reducing soil organic carbon levels in high yielding systems. However, since this study did not study the direct impact of stover removal, that aspect remains to be evaluated."

• Uprising Against the Ethanol Mandate, 23 July 2008 by the New York Times: "Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily waive regulations requiring the oil industry to blend ever-increasing amounts of ethanol into gasoline. A decision is expected in the next few weeks."
  • "His request for an emergency waiver cutting the ethanol mandate to 4.5 billion gallons, from the 9 billion gallons required this year and the 10.5 billion required in 2009, is backed by a coalition of food, livestock and environmental groups."
  • "In ethanol’s home ground of the Midwest, where much of the corn is grown and the additive is made, Mr. Perry’s petition was opposed by 12 governors. Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, accused the Grocery Manufacturers Association, the group leading the public relations fight against ethanol, of 'treasonous' acts."[15]

• Food-related industries launch anti-biofuel campaign, 10 June 2008 by Bloomberg.com, in the Houston Chronicle: "The Grocery Manufacturers Association, the American Meat Institute, the National Restaurant Association and other groups say rising corn-based ethanol production is pushing food costs higher." Their new lobbying alliance, "Food Before Fuel", is "calling on Congress to step back and re-evaluate our biofuels policy, which is distorting the marketplace and harming the environment and consumers."[16]

• The World Food Crisis, 10 April 2008, editorial by the New York Times: "Last year, the food import bill of developing countries rose by 25 percent as food prices rose to levels not seen in a generation....The increases are already sparking unrest from Haiti to Egypt....The rise in food prices is partly because of uncontrollable forces — including rising energy costs and the growth of the middle class in China and India....But the rich world is exacerbating these effects by supporting the production of biofuels."
  • "The International Monetary Fund estimates that corn ethanol production in the United States accounted for at least half the rise in world corn demand in each of the past three years."
  • "At best, corn ethanol delivers only a small reduction in greenhouse gases compared with gasoline. And it could make things far worse if it leads to more farming in forests and grasslands. Rising food prices provide an urgent argument to nix ethanol’s supports."[17]

• Corn-Based Biofuels Spell Death for Gulf of Mexico, 13 March 2008 by Wired Magazine: "If the United States makes corn-based ethanol the centerpiece of its biofuel portfolio, the Gulf of Mexico's vast dead zone will expand and become impossible to control, says a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
  • Corn "is almost universally regarded as an environmentally unfriendly crop that compares poorly to other biofuel sources and requires enormous quantities of fertilizers and pesticides to grow."
  • Link to the scientific article: "Corn-based ethanol production compromises goal of reducing nitrogen export by the Mississippi River"
  • Update: Ethanol, Global Warming and the Ailing Gulf - Report: Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone Could Reach Record Size. 15 July 2008 from The Daily Green: "The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico could reach a new record size this year, and grow to cover an area equal to the State of New Jersey, researchers said Tuesday."
    • "The discharge of pollutants and nutrients from the Mississippi River causes algae to bloom in the Gulf of Mexico. When the algae dies, the decaying absorbs so much oxygen from the water that large areas become inhospitable to fish. The resulting lifeless area is called a eutrophic or hypoxic zone, or more colloquially, a dead zone. The condition is cyclic, and reaches its maximum in late summer."
    • Farmers "have increasingly planted more corn per acre, which depletes the soil and requires heavier inputs of chemical fertilizer....The acreage of corn planted, and the use of fertilizer, has skyrocketed in the past couple of years as Congress set quotas on the use of ethanol".

• "Corn... fuel... fire! U.S. corn subsidies promote Amazon deforestation", 8 January 2008 press release from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute: According to STRI researcher William Laurance, "Amazon deforestation and fires are being aggravated by US farm subsidies...that promote American corn production for ethanol." Corn subsidies also result in farmers reducing production of soy -- thus increasing global soy prices, which in turn promotes burning of forests in the Brazilian Amazon in order to clear land for soy cultivation.
  • According to Laurance, "The evidence of a corn connection to the Amazon is circumstantial, but it's about as close as you ever get to a smoking gun."[18]

2007

• Tropical maize could become biofuel supercrop in the US, similar to sugarcane. "Scientists from the University of Illinois who are studying tropical maize have found that when the crop is grown in the US, it does not produce grain, but stores far more sugar in its stalks instead."

• Ethanol's Growing List of Enemies, 19 March 2007 from Business Week. An unlikely coalition of livestock farmers, free-marketers, and environmentalists is coming together to oppose government subisidies for corn ethanol.

2006

• Rapid ethanol expansion questioned 27 November 2006 from thestarpress.com. While Indiana has 18 ethanol plants proposed or under construction, a Purdue University agricultural economist has suggested that only 7 to 9 will be built due to limits on the amount of corn. The proposed plants would use almost two-thirds of all corn produced in Indiana.

• Stover to Fill Part of Ethanol Goal for US 22 November 2006 from the Des Moines Register. A report issued by the Biotechnology Industry Organization on Tuesday estimated that it was "realistic" to harvest 30 percent of the available stover nationwide to yield 5 billion gallons of ethanol. Most of the stover would continue to be left in the field for environmental reasons as the decaying plant material prevents soil erosion and adds ground nutrients. The US DOE has set a goal of 60 billion gallons of ethanol by 2030. However that goal assumed the use of 70% of stover for ethanol.

• First Commercial-sized Cellulosic Ethanol Plant in US to be built in Iowa 21 November 2006 from the Des Moines Register. The Broin Cos. plant will be converted from a 50 million-gallon-a-year conventional corn dry mill facility into a 125 million-gallon-a-year commercial-scale biorefinery producing ethanol not only from corn but also corn stalks, leaves and cobs.

Events

2008

• 2-4 June 2008, Kansas City, Kansas, USA: 6th Corn Utilization and Technology Conference. Sponsored by the National Corn Growers Association. (Themes: corn, ethanol)

Organizations

• National Corn Growers Association Extensive information on ethanol production in the US

• American Corn Grower's Association "The American Corn Growers Association is America’s leading progressive commodity association, representing the interests of corn producers in 35 states"

Tools

• BESS: Biofuel Energy Systems Simulator - "The BESS model is a software tool to calculate the energy efficiency, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and natural resource requirements of corn–to-ethanol biofuel production systems."

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